Глава II. Классы общества

St. Chrysostom, the patron and protector of the poor, was a natural opponent of the rich; never before has luxury met such a terrible enemy. And, if therefore we judge the highest society of Antioch and Constantinople solely by its data, then our judgment must be extremely harsh. That this severity should not risk being unjust, it would be very important, after depicting this society on the basis of the testimony of St. Chrysostom and the combination in a holistic picture of the features scattered in his conversations - to study more closely the nature of his complaints about wealth and luxury. When we understand what his general points of view on this subject were, and what ideal he formed, it will be easier for us to understand the deep truth of his judgment. But regarding Constantinople and Antioch, we feel a lack of such verification documents as, for example, we have about Rome. Some details from the sophists Libanius or Themistius, the stories of church historians and the reports of the historian Zosimas do not give us the same vivid impression that the historians Macrobius or Symmachus leave about Rome. Thus, in most cases it is almost impossible for us to verify the testimony of St. John in any other way than through himself. At the head of the wealthy Antiochian families, as in all cities of the empire, was the municipal aristocracy, which was made up of members of the Senate or “council”. For the most part, these were the oldest representatives of ancient families, which had been dominant in the city for a long time; The name of the sophist Livanius, teacher of St., can give us an idea about them. Chrysostom. Here, as indeed throughout the empire, these senators did not occupy an enviable position in all respects. Forced to cover significant official expenses, often burdened with assignments requiring large expenses, responsible in many cases for the disobedience of the people, they paid dearly for the honor of their primacy. They, for example, in the 13th of their conversations regarding the overthrow of statues, St. John presents us with people being dragged before the judgment seat, then taken into prison and crossing the forum in chains. On the other hand, Livanius talks about those disasters to which his own ancestors were victims in an earlier time. And it is natural that the ill-fated Senate continually decreased more and more. At the beginning of the 4th century it had about 1,200 members; by the time of Julian it had greatly decreased, and the emperor was forced to replenish it. At the time when Livanius wrote the speech “to the council,” that is, about 386, there were, it seems, only sixty senators, and - what is almost incredible - only twelve at the time of writing the speech “in defense of the councils,” the exact date of which is unknown, but must be attributed to the time after 388. This is why in Antioch, as elsewhere, everyone studiously avoided municipal positions, and the newly rich families resorted to all possible tricks and intrigues to get rid of the replacement of those who were forced to leave their post due to ruin or death. But great wealth was not the exclusive privilege of this aristocracy. During the empire, Syria was a very rich country; one might even say that of all the provinces of the empire, industry and trade were most developed in it and Egypt. Syria was in such a favorable position even longer than Egypt, and, starting from the 4th century, this is especially well proven by the tireless activity of Syrian merchants, who established themselves everywhere, not only in the East, but even in the West, as far as Gaul. Factories of linen, purple and all kinds of fabrics were in huge quantities in Laodicea and Byblos, Tire and Berita. Silk trade was mostly carried out through the Syrians. Agriculture was in a flourishing state. Rich families flocked from all parts of the province to the metropolitan Antioch, and to this day, along the entire length of the banks of the Orontes, there remain the ruins of numerous magnificent villas, of which the oldest can date back almost to the era in question. It is therefore not surprising that in this center of great commercial and industrial activity the love of money was very strong and universal. There were rumors about the greed and stinginess of the Syrians in the 4th century. universal, and they were condemned alike by Christians and pagans in all other parts of the empire. The Emperor Julian, if his assurances in the Misopogon are true, incurred the displeasure of the inhabitants of Antioch not only by the severity which offended their effeminate and dissolute customs, but further armed them against himself by the measures taken to curb their avarice. Everyone, young and old, from shopkeeper to official, guilty of the same offenses, took up arms against him with common hatred. The high cost of food supplies, which was so complained about during his stay in Syria, according to him, was not due to hunger, but due to the insatiable greed of the owners. Blazh. Jerome, who during his Palestinian seclusion stood close to the Syrians and was well informed about them, judged them no differently than Julian: he said that they were all “businessmen and the most stingy people of all mortals.” The wealth of the members of the Antioch council must have been very significant. The same wealth was enjoyed by some families who knew how to avoid municipal positions, although they were in the proper conditions to bear them. They achieved this either by hiding their wealth, or by cleverly using some legal means that were at the disposal of skilled people. That these riches were so great can be judged by the costs that were required of them by the social games they gave to the people when they took office. The expenses, undoubtedly, were not only as significant as in Rome, but even greater. St. John does not give us any information that could be used to approximate the income of the Antioch senator. But, on the contrary, we can form some idea about the relationship of wealthy families to the entire urban population. In one of his conversations on the Gospel, St. Matthew (and in this series of excellent conversations there are many in which he especially vividly touched upon the question of luxury) - he divides the entire population into three classes: the very rich, the very poor and those who occupied a middle position and at least had the means to subsist. In his opinion, both the rich and the poor, each separately, constitute about one-tenth of the inhabitants; the remaining eight-tenths have almost satisfactory means. Perhaps the most interesting thing in this evidence is the conclusion that the middle class was not as insolvent as they are said to sometimes be in large cities in the 4th century. One can imagine Constantinople almost the same as Rome was in the same era. There is even more wealth here than in Antioch, and an even greater number of poor people. In one of his conversations on the “Acts of the Apostles”, which were delivered, as it seems, in the year 401, Chrysostom estimates all the city’s wealth in the aggregate at one million liters of gold, although he immediately adds: “however, what am I saying? maybe double or triple that!” It is clear, therefore, how unwise it would be to rest firmly on such uncertain data. The number of poor people in this very city, where, according to his testimony, there were about 100,000 Christians, he determines to be 50 thousand, although it is not clear whether he wanted to talk about the poor of Christian society or, which is much more plausible, about all the poor, regardless of religion. To calculate in this way what the relative distribution of wealth actually was in the fourth century, and what difference separated the position of the rich from that of the middle class, would be a very interesting question to investigate. But we just saw that St. Chrysostom does not offer data for its exact solution. From reading most of his conversations, one is left with the impression, confirmed, however, by all the information gleaned from other sources, that the wealth of noble people was not only great, but even excessive, and that, consequently, the abuse of luxury went too far. Montfaucon in his dissertation collected the main texts where St. John tells us most clearly about these extremes; his list is dry, but we will find almost no gaps in it. After this, it would be useful to undertake a careful review of the details; it would be worthwhile to better highlight and more clearly highlight the main features. One can quite easily characterize the luxury of the 4th century by comparing it with the luxury of the best times of the empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries. And now luxury appears with the same vices as then: with extravagance, extravagance and vanity, which have undoubtedly gone even further than in the most vain times of the new era. And besides, this luxury provided much less service to art, understood in the true sense of the word. The extreme is manifested first of all in dwellings, and at the same time in their extreme numbers and excessive splendor. Including dachas, Antioch and Constantinople dignitaries often owned ten or even twenty houses. The same must be said about the West; from the correspondence of Symmachus we can obtain information about his chambers and countless estates scattered throughout Italy. St. Chrysostom often, for the purpose of ridicule, liked to describe these magnificent houses, with wide porticos, with lampshades decorated with gilded paneling, with ivory doors. He depicted bedrooms, the walls of which were entirely covered with marble or, (if by chance there was some defect in the marble), with coverings of gilded metal; described beautiful columns with the same gilded capitals, sometimes even entirely, from the very base, covered with gold plates. The rich had a great love for frescoes, but they loved mosaics even more, the fashion for which was constantly growing. Since the content of the frescoes was often mythological or erotic, St. Chrysostom was merciless towards various forms of this art and condemned sculpture with particular severity. It is known, however, that many Christians had rather free thoughts on this subject. We are not talking about the writer Ausonius, who with such pleasure describes in the thirtieth epigram the images of the gods that decorated his villa, since Ausonius, although he was a Christian, was only in name. For his part, the poet Prudentius wanted beautiful statues to be preserved to decorate Rome; in his opinion, it was enough only to abandon all idolatry. St. Chrysostom never spoke openly about the statues that adorned public places and monuments, but these latter must have been very numerous in Antioch. There were probably the same number of them in Constantinople, where Emperor Constantine the Great, next to the images of a Christian nature mentioned by Eusebius, placed a number of remarkable examples of art taken from Greek cities, for which his contemporaries were almost ready to blame him. As for the statues that decorated the houses of private people, St. John, without hesitation, ordered their destruction, apparently not in any way experiencing that reverent artistic feeling that animated Prudentius: he saw only idols in the statues and reproached them for attracting demons. “Who would agree to see a naked woman? The naked figure is so shameful! The demon is hiding behind her. All our statues are nothing more than depictions of fornication.” Anyone who wants to imagine the palace of a wealthy Greek of the 4th century should especially read the discourse on Psalm 48, which is entirely directed against luxury. Here St. Chrysostom, in addition to the chambers themselves, describes the gardens surrounding them, graceful fountains among these gardens and porticos, where everyone finds shade and coolness. Country houses are no less magnificent than city palaces, although life there is very rare, so these dachas are built more “for crows to live in” than for themselves. If sometimes they go to live in these dachas, it is not at all in order to find a village there; no, they want to meet all the city’s elegance and luxury here too. And what preparations did the rich man, whose number of slaves reached up to a thousand or two thousand, make for moving for several days, for a simple walk! With what a retinue of servants and eunuchs he finally set off on his stretcher or in a cart pulled by magnificently harnessed mules! Descriptions of St. Chrysostom, concerning the East, here almost word for word coincides with the descriptions that his compatriot Ammianus left us about Rome, and where in such vivid colors he presented how these nobles set off on a journey through their lands, preceded by decuria and centuries of slaves, or eunuchs, fully armed and led by stewards. These vain journeys of St. John likes to contrast the patriarchal simplicity of Abraham, who, despite his wealth, was distinguished by such modesty in his long migrations. What particularly characterizes the rough and loud, often Byzantine luxury of the 4th century is the abuse of expensive materials. In everything, matter strives to prevail over form - and this circumstance is always one of the first reasons and few dubious indicators of the decline of art. This deficiency, which can already be felt in the description of the rich house we have given, based on the testimony of Chrysostom, naturally affected the room setting. All furniture, all tables, beds and chairs were covered with silver, gold or ivory, if they were not entirely made of this material. The same must be said about carts. The emperor's chariot, all covered with movable gold plaques, sparkled and glittered at the slightest movement, received even greater shine from the precious stones inserted here and there; drawn by white mules, in harness no less dotted with decorations, she was an inimitable model, to which everyone sought to get as close as possible and permissible. The same taste reigned in clothing and St. Chrysostom constantly denounced the fashion for brocade and silk. He is indignant that the inhabitants of Constantinople no longer want to hear about modesty, and even in Antioch he had to denounce this prejudice, since it was to Syria that silk was delivered through the Caspian Sea and put into production in the factories of Beritus and Tire. In particular, speaking about the clothes of St. John notes an unusually bad taste for fabrics embroidered with large figures of people and animals. This was big news then and, therefore, in great fashion. They deliberately went out into the square to surprise with these magnificent clothes. The Romans, like the eastern peoples, were distinguished by the same love of dress, and here again Ammianus appears in perfect agreement with St. Chrysostom. Silk was even used to decorate shoes. Young people wore shoes with pointed toes and took great care not to get them dirty. “Then you’d better hang it around your neck!” - St. exclaimed to them. John in one of his usual outbursts of sincere irritation. Let's look at the rich man of Antioch or Constantinople on one of those days when he flaunts his wealth and gives a big feast. Here we will have the opportunity to see the manifestation of all his luxury, and St. Chrysostom will give all the data for a complete description of it. From the first years of his preaching he attacked too lavish feasts, and from that time on he never ceased to repeat his denunciations. There are, he says, two equally terrible reasons for such extremes: firstly, gluttony, the strongest (as he once proves) of all pleasures, stronger even than voluptuousness, and secondly, vanity. Each one arouses the envy of his neighbors with these dinners, who, for their part, strive to give a feast that is even more brilliant; in Antioch in particular this competition was very hot, and the envious, ambitious desire to surpass others seems to have been predominantly developed among the Syrians. Often the envy that caused a very successful feast was so strong that it “exposed the person giving the feast to mortal danger.” For these dinners, all the most precious dishes and golden goblets weighing half a talent were taken out of the cupboards. Those semicircular tables, sigma-shaped, which were often described by Greek and Latin authors of the era of emperors, were used for the feast. The table is covered with an expensive tablecloth, served by a huge number of servants, according to ancient custom, especially chosen, young, if possible beautiful and at least as dressed as the guests. Over the course of the entire week, the owner put more work into preparing the feast than an army general. The cook skillfully arranges the order and succession of dishes, between which St. Chrysostom, in particular, points out that the most exquisite are pheasants and, a somewhat strange custom, fowl stuffed with fish. They drink the most expensive Fasos wine. But the most shameful thing is that at the end of the feast they call in the flute and cithara players, and these are the same harlots, ready for any vileness. They also enjoy the funny spectacle of comic monsters, jesters and dwarfs. Unhappy beggars, in order to gain alms, come to amaze with their tricks, often life-threatening and inhumane, and indulge in the most pathetic buffoonery. As for the guests, many of them are nothing more than parasites, whose tribe, always equally shameless and voracious, as in the glorious days of ancient comedy, multiplied at that time more than ever. In relation to parasites, St. Chrysostom is very strict: he accuses them not only of shamelessness, but also proves that they are ungrateful people and traitors, and that their denunciations are often disastrous for their patrons. There are, however, here - not to mention noble guests - also honest, poor people, clients who consider it an honor to be received by nobles. But here they are truly the most pitiful people and feel very restless: “they are embarrassed, like boys at school.” They are treated incomparably worse than parasites, who are sometimes allowed to commit outrages. These people have no right to anything here; here every right is directed only against themselves. This is the ancient feast in the 4th century, essentially the same as the one described with deep bitterness by the satirist Juvenal. His fifth satire is always played out here. Poor Trebius suffers no less shame from his patron, and Virron remains of the same opinion that there is nothing funnier than a starving client. “Could there be any comedy or any comedian funnier than Hungry Throat?” One day St. Chrysostom said: “Hearing that I so often repeat the same accusations against your table excesses, do not think that I want to completely ban feasts. No, I only want them to be conducted decently.” And you can take his word for it, since he was not a blind fanatic at all. He knew very well what he wanted, and, studying his main thoughts about luxury and wealth, we will see that if sometimes, attacking rather insignificant, apparently trifles, he strengthened his tone and raised his voice, he did it consciously and deliberately. He had his own motives, and weighty motives, to attack the feasts with such tenacity and force; and he reveals them to us quite clearly several times. He knows well that too often these feasts end in a real orgy, i.e. not only drunkenness, but debauchery and seductive scenes of voluptuousness. “From feasts come all your lusts. Leaving the table, hot with wine and food, you go into a pit for uncleanness, for such is the body of a harlot. And I will refer this to you yourself, wallowing in the mud and then blushing at the memory of your shamelessness.” He often describes the frenzy of feelings that accompanies a feast; we will even find in him very clear hints of extremes unworthy of man, which cannot be expressed here. He shames the masters, whose passion and drunkenness makes them ridiculous in front of their own slaves, witnesses of their weakness. That is why he is such a ruthless opponent of feasting, an open enemy of gluttony, who never ceases to present it as the mother of all vices and diseases. And he willingly insists on these last conclusions; likes, for example, to imagine a glutton tormented by gout. When he happened to address his speech to women, then, knowing full well what kind of arguments they needed, he referred to the testimony of famous doctors and said that gluttony retards growth; - advice to those who were afraid of being too short. But his evidence is not always as ironic as this one. Often this is an enthusiastic speech, always proceeding from the same conviction that gluttony is the mother of voluptuousness and that “fornication is born from excessive and too refined food.” Another kind of luxury, which St. often mentions. John, manifested itself in the acquisition of tamed animals. “We feed dogs, donkeys, bears and other wild animals,” he says in the 47th conversation on St. John. This was a very common custom at that time. Let us remember that Emperor Valentinian had a favorite bear, stained with the blood of those condemned to death. Livanius, who had a very tender soul, passionately loved pigeons, and when, having decided to devote himself to philosophy and eloquence, he sold his expensive birds, he considered it a major sacrifice. For the luxury of St. Chrysostom mainly reproaches men; The main drawback of women in his eyes is luxury in their outfits. For him, as for all Christian speakers, woman is the creature both most capable of devotion and virtue and at the same time most susceptible to corruption and weakness. He never ceases to glorify the wonders of love to which it rises and curse the vices into which it falls. Women, even more than men, indulge in extreme luxury in carriages. “Many of the women among us are so tender and weak that they cannot even cross the streets and cross them on their mules” - on those beautiful, richly blanketed mules that they tried so hard to acquire in the 4th century. As for clothes and jewelry, St. Chrysostom almost only repeats those descriptions that were often made by the first apologists and even earlier by their prophets. With equal severity, he condemns fabrics embroidered with silk and woven with gold, gold and silver items, and the sophisticated art of hairstyles. “You surpass actresses in your recklessness, and the worst thing is that you don’t even consider this a sin: to such an extent the love of clothes has become natural to you.” Once he directs the wonderful curses of the prophet Isaiah against them, threatening them with a gnawing worm and eternal darkness. But the women laughed and said that there had never been an example of God punishing a woman for her excessive love of clothes. Then he replaces the reproaches of the prophet with the admonitions of the Apostle Paul. Like all fathers, St. Chrysostom speaks with particular indignation against empty vanity with precious stones. Even men wear rings with stones embedded in them. For women, there is nothing that they would not do just to get themselves beautiful earrings. They drive their husbands to the most insane expenses and are mercilessly jealous of each other. It is known what misfortunes the accidental loss of a jewel entails; it is known that then the slaves were beaten, the men were arrested and imprisoned. “To you, your jewelry is more valuable than your children. Do you mind? Yes, more expensive than children, since which of you would agree to ransom your sick child by giving away jewelry for alms?” St. Chrysostom persecutes women who are always ready to argue and find fault in all their arguments, and does not neglect to fight even their most childish arguments. They objected to him that luxury in jewelry and precious stones is actually an economical luxury, since they are not spent, they remain forever and thus are passed on from generation to generation. St. Chrysostom denied this: “you often go to the bathhouse,” he objected, “and little by little the precious stones are diminished.” However, all this evidence did not have much effect. In the church itself, on the day when, perhaps, the preacher explained the texts of St. Paul or St. Isaiah, the women appeared in their most brilliant outfits and thought only of one thing, how to outshine the others. Even virgins and widows, dedicated to God, were able, as we will see, to show great skill in the selection of dark and simple clothes, which were prescribed for them by the church. And so, in this way, honest women became quite similar to the harlots whom St. so vividly described and so severely condemned. Chrysostom In Antioch and Byzantium, which had become Christian, harlots, it is true, no longer reigned as empresses - as was the case in that era when paganism remained inviolable and preserved with itself the ancient tradition of free Greek morals - but relations with them continued to be viewed not as adultery. St. Chrysostom tries to expose all their tricks and tricks, not only charms and love drinks, which, in his opinion, they use and which, according to him, cause so many diseases, but also no less terrible magical ways of seducing them, such as, for example, their provocative gaze and even one fragrance, felt by a passerby on the street, exciting sensuality and inciting inevitable passions. Harlots rule over their admirers and incline them to all sorts of baseness. They drag these “wife slaves” along with them as their property, strangle them and beat them, and from these girls born in the last strata of society, men suffer what would make them suffer if their wives did it. They master their minds so much that they often achieve marriage. We will encounter similar images in our discussion of spectacles, since the most famous harlots almost always belonged to the theater. Briefly speaking, the morals of the rich in the 4th century were still too often purely pagan morals, which reigned throughout the empire. Luxury is extremely excessive, debauchery is universal and free! Christianity has reformed the morals of most pious families, but has not yet carried out a general reform of morals. Here we come to the favorites of St. Chrysostom, to those humiliated people so dear to his heart! It was to them that his word was primarily directed; to them, even more than to the fortunate ones of this world, was addressed the sweet appeal of the Christian speaker - “my beloved,” which in his mouth seems to take on a very special shade of fatherly tenderness. If we asked him what were the virtues and faith of all these poor people, he would not have enough praise: - these are the most diligent people, those who listen best and benefit from what they hear; these are the most pious, and, as far as possible, even the most merciful; these are those who, in all cases and always, surrounded their shepherd with the most zealous love, the most passionate devotion. If we began to look for St. John of exact indications of their position and type of life, we would have found less information, but, nevertheless, we would have collected some details that have their own meaning and importance. We will have the opportunity to see that the ideas of St. John about wealth, arts and crafts, if applied without reservation, would cause great harm to the artisans, since they would kill almost all the main types of trade and industry in the very bud. However, he was most interested in this class of people, which his theories could, perhaps, harm to the same extent as the rich. He often talks about the precarious existence, about the simple and honest life of these humble people: shoemakers, blacksmiths and all kinds of artisans. He introduces us to their means of subsistence and reveals the interior of their house, their hearth, although with less clarity than would be desirable. From him we learn, however, that some of these free workers supported and fed themselves, others, on the contrary, were hired out to patrons who took upon themselves their maintenance and, as a result, gave them very moderate wages. Another time he says about these patrons that if they were Christians, they tried a lot to encourage their workers to observe religious customs; for example, they made sure that these latter did not break their fast. Apart from this information, he does not say anything that would throw any bright light on the relations of capital and labor in the 4th century. It would also be desirable to find more extensive information about the inhabitants of the villages, about those unfortunate peasants and cultivators who were so constrained in this era, whose situation almost all historians agree is very difficult. Once, when in Antioch, at one of his conversations, these village inhabitants were present, who barely understood Greek and, strictly speaking, did not speak anything other than Syriac, he, after praising them for their virtues, apparently imagined their condition to be happier than the situation of the townspeople; but the entire introduction, where he addresses them, is boldly idyllic, and here, as in his other conversations of this time, one can still feel that he somewhat allowed himself to be carried away by the charm of the oratorical presentation. Later, he spoke in a different tone and in a bleak picture, depicting these pitiful, starved people, “who work without rest all their lives, depressed by unbearable taxes, condemned to oppressive poverty, like donkeys or mules. And what am I saying! their bodies are taken care of less than stones would be taken care of; they are not allowed to breathe and are equally exhausted whether their fields are fruitful or not. Can there be poverty similar to their poverty when, at the end of a winter spent in the roughest work, exhausted by cold, rain and night labor, they return home empty-handed and even still in debt? They tremble before punishments, before illegal exactions and robbery by stewards.” No doubt, to explain the difference between these two texts, it is necessary to remember that they were written in two different, rather distant eras and that during this period the mood of the speaker changed somewhat. But there is also no doubt that the second text agrees more than the first with the actual state of affairs. Beggars in the proper sense, unhappy people, deprived of any means of subsistence and forced to live on the alms of others, were very numerous. Undoubtedly, there were those among them who endured their misfortune without complaint or fought courageously to get out of trouble. But many, on the contrary, were only partially worthy of attention. The beggars of the 4th century abused public charity with the greatest shamelessness. Many of them pretended to be sick, others themselves mutilated their children or gouged out their eyes. Still others, clever people and prudes, flattered the vanity of young women and, in order to earn some alms, whispered compliments of their beauty into their ears. The majority tried to dispel the boredom of the rich and occupy their attention for a moment with their buffoonery, clever tricks and buffoonery, sometimes indecent, sometimes barbaric. St. Chrysostom reproached the rich for favoring and approving of these shameful customs, and this was one of the points for which he most condemned them. Indeed, nothing can better show us what rudeness then penetrated into the morals of a society in times of decline. A rich man who is capable of calling a poor man to baseness and finds shameless pleasure in enjoying the humiliation of his own kind, unfortunately, is found at all times, but in a well-ordered society he is nothing more than a rare exception; At that time this was not the exception, but almost the rule. These beggars, ready for anything, were seen on the streets, and sometimes at feasts where they were given access. Some gnawed at old shoes, others swallowed nails, some threw themselves completely naked into the frozen water. There was a competition between them to see who could come up with some new absurdity, and often, while performing their buffoonery, they sang obscene refrains. A thrown piece of bread served as their reward. The Church sought to remove the poor from the feasts of the rich, where they extorted handouts at the cost of dishonor, and tried to call them to themselves. A place was reserved for them in the courtyard preceding the basilicas, in the porticoes surrounding this courtyard, and on the very threshold of the building. Before entering the congregation, believers were thus invited to discover the first of the Christian virtues. A comparison often made in the 4th century indicates the meaning with which this custom was adopted. The beggars were compared to those ponds for ablutions that then decorated the courtyards leading to the basilicas, those courtyards where the beggars were located. Just as a believer cleansed his body in a pond, so he cleansed his soul with alms. St. John often presented to us in Antioch and Constantinople these crowds of beggars about the churches, of which he said they were a wonderful ornament, and one of the best words he ever uttered was, of course, that magnificent word on alms, where, in an inspired introduction, he introduces himself to the Christians of Antioch, as the envoy and legate of the beggars, through whose miserable crowd he had just passed before ascending to the pulpit. All these beggars, apparently, were very numerous; Without a doubt, as always, and at that time, even medicine - that is, charity, did not heal all evil, but on the contrary served partly to increase it, favoring laziness. Placing the blame entirely on the rich, St. Chrysostom admitted that many of the beggars were pretending and almost did not deserve help. It is therefore inappropriate to be surprised that criminals often emerged from such environments. Thieves were far from uncommon and showed themselves to be very skillful. They wormed their way into every crowd and knew how to act very cleverly. They especially took advantage of the warm baths that were so frequently visited, where, thanks to their experience in their art, their task seemed especially easy. From the earliest times they also realized that churches were no less convenient places for their abuses, and for this purpose they went to congregations. At the first time of his sermon, St. John took it upon himself to warn his believing listeners to take precautions against them. Sometimes these beggars committed incomparably more serious offenses. St. Chrysostom once mentions the attack of some of them on a woman of respectable position and remarkable beauty that struck the whole city, whom they captured alone in the vicinity of Antioch. Naturally, we meet all these loafers in the front row in the disturbances that are so common and frequent in the restless eastern cities. This was the case in Antioch in 387. The main culprits were among these idlers and scoundrels, whom we will meet later when talking about the theater, where they played the role of claqueurs. Ideas of St. Chrysostom on wealth and charity St. Chrysostom expressively says many times that he does not condemn wealth, but only its bad use. In fact, however, he went much further and often condemned him, apparently in itself. Observing that he assures otherwise, is it necessary to think that he was showing oratorical caution here, or did he change his view under the influence of circumstances? Yes, rather, we need to admit the latter, as we see in other points, since this happens to every person, especially if he obeys the pressure of his feelings more than is guided by ideas. We would gladly say that when St. John met with objections and sharp resistance and explored his task theoretically - he was usually forced to admit that wealth is not absolutely evil in itself; but when he gave himself up to his inclination and followed the passionate movements of his sincere inspiration, then he found no words to express his contempt for wealth, and since this he almost always did, it can be said with good reason that his real opinion was not at all in favor of wealth - if a choice must necessarily be made between two extremes in his views. But even when he examines the issue more closely, he happens to express thoughts about the origin of inequality between people that, surprisingly, are somewhat related to the ideas of Rousseau. Of course, he does not proclaim the abolition of property: he tolerates it, since it exists and is even the recognized foundation of society, since Christianity only wants to reform souls and does not at all approve of any revolution in the state 8. But he no longer tolerates it; in essence, he condemns him. All evil, he says, comes “from these cold words – yours and mine.” By origin and nature, all people are equal, have the same needs and the same rights. “Consequently, common use is more natural than ownership.” There is no complaint about what is common: there is no dispute about the sun, air and water, which everyone enjoys for the same reason; there are no disputes over public property: squares, porticoes and monuments, to which everyone has the same right and which everyone enjoys equally. In a rich man's house, inhabited by countless slaves, everyone receives the same share. The same should be true in the existence of people: God gave everyone the same part, and some should not collect too many parts to the detriment of others. But these thoughts, with all their radicality, do not threaten the social order of life, for in the eyes of St. Chrysostom, as in the opinion of all Christians, the remembrance of original equality imposes on the rich the obligation of charity, without the right to demand anything from the poor in return. Having described all the hardness and severity of the hearts of the nobles and the rich, showing them “the worst wild beasts”, furiously rushing to plunder orphans, widows and all the weak and unfortunate, St. John suddenly stops and, in wonderful, inspired excitement, demands an answer from the unfortunate victims of other people's stinginess. He asks them in order to arouse in them compassion, and not anger towards the merciless: “cry,” he says, “cry with me, but not for yourself, but for your robbers, who are more unfortunate than you.” Theoretical views of St. John are replenished with others, so to speak, historical ones, which are completely similar to the first. He does not hesitate to say that the origin of all great wealth lies in untruth, deceit and violence. “Every rich man is a wicked man or the heir of a wicked man.” “You received your wealth by inheritance, so be it. You, therefore, have not sinned yourself, but are you sure that you are not now blessing theft and previous crimes? How, indeed, these enormous riches would rejoice, if not to the detriment of insignificant and unfortunate people. Wealth is entirely the product of greed and stinginess, two of the most terrible and most terrible vices. Who doesn’t know how people usually get rich? They get rich thanks to petty deceptions in trade, since poor merchants and insignificant artisans are no more innocent than everyone else; then, through repurchase, as did that rich man of Antioch, whose inhuman annoyance St. describes to us. Chrysostom, after the fears of a bad harvest had dissipated and this rich man had lost the hope he had placed in selling the grain stored in huge quantities; they enrich themselves, further, through an increase in interest, so shameful that even civil law prohibited senators from this source of income. Finally, they get rich at the expense of widows and orphans, from whom their family estates are taken away, abusing their loneliness and inexperience. And the most insatiable are always the richest: they are the most inexorable creditors, starting all kinds of litigation and ruining small people. This picture is very gloomy. But should we think that here we mainly encounter exaggerations, characteristic of every speaker? Without a doubt, no. Let us remember how many places St. traveled. Chrysostom first in Antioch and then in Constantinople. We saw what enormous commercial and industrial activity was in full swing in Syria at that time, and we know what they generally thought throughout the empire about Syrian merchants. The huge villas of manufacturers and merchants have never offered a very comforting spectacle to the eyes of a moralist, and one must think that Antioch was by no means an exception to the rule, since a few years before St. Chrysostom, Julian the Apostate condemned her no less harshly than the saint. In Constantinople, St. John could be convinced of the unscrupulous stinginess of major officials. There were, of course, very honest people in the state administration in the 4th century, like Praetextatus and Symmachus, but it is enough to read the history of Ammianus to have no doubt that the exceptions were not very general and strict. Let us remember that even such a person as the famous Probus, so often praised by Christians and having such a loud reputation, was not free from reproach, if we believe the same Ammianus, a generally moderate and truthful writer. It can therefore be argued that the complaints and censures of St. Chrysostom were fair in most cases. But does this mean, on the other hand, that they never exceeded the limits? To affirm the latter would be almost as unwise as to deny them, without any exception, all truth and validity. And we find indisputable proof of this in the opinion which he so often expressed on the subject of interest. He condemns it unconditionally, and speaking of interest, like most St. fathers, does not mean an excessive percentage, but the percentage itself, whatever it may be. In particular, St. John means and condemns the percentage of a hundredth part, - “one out of a hundred” per month or “twelve out of a hundred”: indeed, the percentage is very significant in our eyes, but in ancient times it was quite common. Some of the ideas of St. John's ideas about wealth and poverty seem to be somewhat similar to the tenets of ancient philosophy, and the expression he gives to them resembles quite closely some sayings dear to the pagan poets and rhetoricians. Here we must include such often repeated commonplaces that wealth and poverty in themselves are neither good nor evil, but are among the average and indifferent things; that, further, wealth itself is, more often than not, a less faithful and happy situation than poverty. And St. John loves to describe the changes and infidelity of wealth, as well as the torment of avarice. On the contrary, he repeatedly depicts the sweetness of poverty with the deepest sympathy. We have already noted the idyllic picture he painted of the morals of Syrian farmers. Later, he developed the same topic even more brilliantly. “What can I say about the sun, this brilliant and blinding luminary that delights our eyes? Isn't this pleasure available to everyone - both the poor and the rich? What can we say about the crown formed by the stars in the firmament? What can I say about the moon? Do they not belong to everyone equally? Moreover, and what is most surprising, we poor people enjoy them even more than the rich. Most often, exhausted by drunkenness, they spend their lives alternately in the debauchery of feasts and in the heavy sleep that follows them, and do not even notice these sublime spectacles; they do not leave their house and live in the shadows. On the contrary, the condition of the poor is such that no class of people enjoys so fully the beauties of nature. In the countryside they enjoy cleaner air than in the city.” But these are incidental details that the speaker uses because the preacher must not neglect anything, must bring to his aid all arguments, whatever they may be, just to make an impression and alternately touch all the feelings of the human heart. In essence, the basic idea with which St. is always inspired. John, the idea is deeply Christian: he justifies the initial equality of people by recalling their common origin. They are brothers not in a figurative sense, but in the true sense of the word. “What marvelous measures did God take from the very beginning to instill in us a sense of humanity and love that would unite one to another? He gave us a common father, Adam; otherwise why are we not born from the earth? Why don’t we come into the world perfect and mature, like Adam himself? No, it was necessary that we were adopted, begotten by our parents; it was necessary to be born one from the other in order for us to be united by mutual love. This is where family feelings come from, the mutual love of parents and children, brothers and sisters. Then, in order to expand the circle of this pure and deep love, God forbade marriages between relatives; So He wanted to mix some families with others. Finally, He gave us the sweet feeling of friendship, made us dependent on each other, unable to live without resorting to mutual brotherly services, and this is the true basis of enlightenment. If we are united by such relations, then what is the importance of the differences in which titles and wealth place us? Did you give yourself St. Chrysostom's report is that inequality of wealth is an inevitable evil and even a condition for the very existence of civilized societies? Did he hope that, thanks to the influence of Christianity, this inequality might be destroyed? Without a doubt, he, like all St. fathers, knew that a rich man, if he uses his property properly, can preserve it. Sometimes wealth is an obstacle to salvation, but it is never an invincible obstacle. This issue has long been resolved in the Church, and the treatise of St. Clement of Alexandria's “Which Rich Man Will Be Saved” remains a classic of this kind. However, carried away by his ardent desire for improvement, in certain moments of enthusiasm, St. John seemed to believe that the new faith could heal the inequality of wealth. This is the clear meaning of the interpretation that the famous chapter of the Acts of the Apostles inspired him with. Fleury had the right to say that the first society of believers, a society in the full sense of the word, St. Chrysostom presents it to the people of his time not as a temporary and exceptional phenomenon, but as an ideal that would be feasible if egoism did not oppose it. He does not want to see that this little church from the very beginning was unable to exist on its own funds, that it had to very soon make an appeal to the charity of others and make a profit from the donations with which St. was so busy. ap. Paul. He does not want to notice that the social situation caused by the church - if the absence of even the basic conditions of any society can be called a social situation - being maintained for some time only at the expense of its neighbors, cannot become common. He is animated by the same feeling in a very curious passage from the thirty-fourth discourse on the first letter to the Corinthians, where he invents the bold hypothesis of two cities, one consisting entirely of the rich, the other exclusively inhabited by the poor. Compare both these cities. How could a city of the rich exist? From the very first day he will be reduced to powerlessness and need and doomed to certain destruction. On the contrary, nothing will prevent the existence of the city of the poor. This time St. John presents his description as purely imaginary, although he gives it all apparent plausibility. This is because, in fact, due to the tension of his imagination, he did not want to look at this city of the poor as a simple utopia and thought that it was realized in monasteries. He very often repeated that the life of those living in the world should not be any different from the life of monks, with the exception of marriage. St. John constantly objects to those who wanted to distinguish in St. The Gospel commands apply to everyone, and advice entrusted only to the monks, which naturally extends to the latter as much as it bypasses the area of ​​the former. And, if in his comparison of the two cities of St. Chrysostom does not give a name to the city of the poor, then we can, without falling into error, recognize the actual model according to which he formed it. But even here, he apparently did not ask the question of how necessary a condition for the existence of these monasteries - just like the original Jerusalem society - is the constant presence of that very civilized society from which they fled and which they cursed. However, one should not understand the words of St. Chrysostom is quite literally when he is so carried away by his inspiration. We must not completely forget that he is a preacher, that is, an orator. Undoubtedly, he is not one of those who are prone to declamation, but, in his fierce struggle against selfishness and vices, how could he be moderate and always restrain himself? Bl. Jerome, who was reproached for being too protective of virginity at the expense of marriage, in a letter to Pammachius, where he so severely condemns Jovian, compiled a whole theory about the rights of the polemicist. And in the first place, he demands the right to sometimes give his thoughts a somewhat enhanced expression. “It’s another thing to fight, another thing to teach. I am in the midst of a battle, and while I am fighting for my life, you are going to give me a lesson from a pedantic teacher." And further he takes as an example not only pagan speakers, not only Tertullian, St. Cyprian or St. Hilary, but even the teacher of all theologians, that great apostle. Paul, about whom he expressed himself so incomparably in the 48th letter that “every time he reads it, it seems to him as if he hears not words, but peals of thunder.” All preachers more or less claim the same right as Jerome. By the time of St. Chrysostom, Christianity had already conquered the world, and now it was only necessary to remind in all their severity those instructions that people tried too hard to interpret in their own way or limit. And about Chrysostom we can say that he had to resort to the means that the bl. spoke about. Jerome, but much more often, he, like his Divine Teacher Himself, ascended so highly into the spheres of love that he lost sight of the sad and harsh laws of an imperfect human society. To such an extent was it sweet to repeat with the apostle: “the multitude of believers had one heart and one soul,” that for one who had once drunk with this passionate desire, it was inexpressibly difficult to give up the hope of ever seeing its fulfillment. Passionate denunciations, such as St. John directed against the rich; it was necessary to arouse a lot of anger. As much as his voice became tender when he spoke about the poor, as much as he had sweet and tender consolations for them, he was just as cruel and unforgiving towards those whom he saw as oppressors of his beloved poor. He rarely drew the image of a kind rich man, one “who pays the debts of the unfortunate, visits prisoners, etc.” And vice versa, how many times did he draw a bad rich man? We can take, as the most typical example, a series of beautiful conversations, of course, standing among his best works - we mean those that he delivered during the first time of his preaching activity in Antioch, “On the Parable of Lazarus.” Here is one of the most curious examples of the perfect art with which he, as a moralist, was able to explain St. Scripture. With a mass of witty remarks, correct conclusions, and fascinating assumptions, with an incredible wealth of ingenuity in the details of interpretation, he presents Lazarus as the ideal of the poor man. He manages even better to show the depth of depravity in the rich man and to find a mass of vices that are almost impossible to suspect in him simply by reading the Gospel text. This is the most skillful indictment, extremely inexhaustible in its fruitful search for charges that enhance the significance of the offense. In addition, St. Chrysostom often spoke against wealth with some prejudice. It is clear from this that few rich people possessed such an exalted heart and mind enough to listen to these curses peacefully and without protest. Sometimes the objections came simply from the crude calculations of the crowd, which supported the necessity and legality of great wealth. This common sense of the crowd sometimes used rather strange arguments, which were understandable only in that age when they considered it their duty to confirm every opinion on a sacred text. It was not very difficult to find favorable texts in the Old Testament; Moreover, to these actual texts others were added, to which they gave an alien meaning and into which they even made insertions. So, for example, they cited the words that the prophet Haggai puts into the mouth of the Lord: “my silver and my gold,” giving them such a special meaning: “and since I am the master of this, I will give them to whomever I want.” In the end, these words: “I will give them to whomever I want” were introduced into the text itself and it was presented in this form, so St. Chrysostom was forced to correct this error. Much more often the resistance was more vigorous. In the church, however, the word of the speaker was respected, although it happened that the preacher read on their faces an unconcealed expression of inner displeasure. But immediately after leaving the church, both in Antioch, and especially in Constantinople, they were ready for very cruel insidious intentions. This can be assumed with confidence, although we do not have direct and accurate evidence. It is enough to see under what coalition St. fell. John later. But we have his own testimony, decisive and often repeated. How many times did he say to the rich: “Yes, I know that my speech infuriates you!” In the last years of his bishopric, he seemed to be constantly surrounded by that dull hatred, which he fearlessly faced face to face. “They say to me: will you stop speaking against the rich? - he exclaims one day, explaining the misfortune of Saturninus and Aurelian, - again your anathemas against the rich! And I will answer you: - again your cruelty to the poor! You insatiably abuse the poor, and I will not get enough of blaming and condemning you. I am not pursuing you, but the wolf, and if you are not a wolf, I am not pursuing you. If you become a wolf, blame yourself. Know that I am not anti-rich; on the contrary, I stand for the rich. I am not attacking them, but I want to heal the disease." Of course, inside the basilica, while pronouncing these majestic words, St. John was confident in the respect and silence of his listeners, but if you think about the intrigues that ensued after leaving it, about the rage that secretly boiled in vengeful hearts and finally led to such a terrible explosion, then one has to be surprised no less by the courage of the saint than by his eloquence. Let us now leave the ideal of St. Chrysostom. In essence, he was fully aware that he would not get the rich people of Constantinople to come to his feet, as to the feet of the new apostle, to lay an offering of their own goods before the altar of the great church. It was necessary to meekly submit and accept the world as it was, that is, controlled by greed, not hope to lead it to ideal perfection, and confine oneself only to correcting it, as far as possible. Medicine is alms given generously and daily. Between all St. by the fathers of the 4th century, the distinctive feature of St. Chrysostom is that he is an inspired and tireless apostle of mercy. The panegyric to this “queen of virtues” is a theme to which he returns in each of his words, and the variety and inexhaustible abundance of his thoughts and images is truly amazing. To be so amazingly eloquent, it was not enough to have a productive and remarkably flexible mind and amazing ease of speech - for this you needed another, eternally living and beating source, i.e. heart overflowing with love. The mind is poor, but the heart is rich, and no one knew how to enrich one treasure with another like St. Chrysostom Once, before his Antioch listeners, he, with complete disdain for himself, beautifully praising the Evangelist John, said that he himself - alas! – had nothing in common with the latter except the name. But he was too modest; he carried within himself the same gift of love and tenderness that tradition appropriates to the beloved disciple of the Lord. This is what always made his listeners listen to him with equal diligence, which is why even now we can read without fatigue these long and countless conversations, almost always having the same subject and representing nothing more than a series of constantly new, constantly natural and relaxed variations on the theme of love. Alms - (and we must remember here that the meaning of the Greek word is more beautiful and broader, and it would be better to translate it with the word “mercy”) - “there is a queen, there is the heart of virtues.” She is “the oil which the lamp of the foolish virgins lacked.” Sometimes they ascend to heaven without virginity, but not without love, and all sins recede before it. Giving to the poor is giving to God; and in this identification of the poor man and I. Christ St. Chrysostom found the initial development of the beautiful thought about the high dignity of the poor, which Bossuet so majestically glorified. “Of course, I could feed myself,” he puts into the mouth of Christ, as if again incarnated in this way as a beggar, “but I love more to wander like a beggar, to stretch out my hand in front of your door to be fed by you, and I do this out of love for you. I love your table as much as his friends do, I consider it an honor to be admitted to it; but in the face of the whole world I proclaim your praise and point everyone to you as My breadwinner.” Elsewhere, advising care for the poor in his wills, he exclaimed: “It is regrettable and terrible what I want to say, however, it is necessary to express it: put God on an equal footing with your slaves. You give freedom to slaves by your will; free Christ also from hunger, want, prison and nakedness. Oh, you tremble at these words”... “Yes,” he continues, explaining the beautiful words of the apostle: “if not the imam of love...”, etc., “all other virtues have their share of difficulties; love is like a good bee, collecting good from all sides and depositing it in the soul of the one who loves. Tears and sorrow of love are sweeter than all joy and all laughter.” “Virginity, fasting and genuflection benefit only one who observes them and do not save anyone else. But almsgiving extends to everyone. It embraces all the members of Christ, and good deeds that extend to many are much more beautiful than those limited to one.” “Love is the greatest of gifts. Let us manifest it, and we will not be lower than Peter and Paul, despite their miracles.” No matter how eloquent and touching St. Chrysostom in this constant panegyric of mercy, he still prefers to rarely dwell on these general places. Although his words here were very fruitful and brilliant, he was, without regret, ready to abandon general reasoning, preferring to them precise and direct advice, in which he is no less excellent. The natural makeup of his genius and his personal originality lie in the fact that he combines two almost incompatible techniques: the brilliant technique of Bossuet and at the same time the most soulful method of Bourdalou. However, accurate advice in his time was much more necessary than later. When Christianity, over the course of several centuries, remade the world in its own way, established in society all the institutions that it bore within itself in embryo, it could already be content with only frequent reminders of the principles, and this becomes even the most essential. For example, in the 17th century, the task of the preacher was limited to only inspiring the hearts of believers with the fire of virtues; to make souls inflame with love, which would quite naturally find the paths it needs, wisely outlined for it by worldly discipline. This situation was already outlined in the 4th century and, however, how many more new customs needed to be introduced and new traditions established! It is not enough to make one feel virtue and make one love it; one must also precisely define its nature and indicate with careful care its implementation. And Chrysostom takes the trouble to describe all the different forms in which alms can be expressed. It is not enough to give a beggar some obol on the street; you need to share the rest of your lunch with him, give him your old clothes. You should have a small box or mug at home in your room, like those found in the church, and before performing your daily prayer, you should put a donation into it, no matter how small it may be, and this latter, growing insensitively, would once bring relief to many unfortunates 9 . Since, unfortunately, personal charity is insufficient and too often careless, you still need to transfer part of your property to the Church, which itself supports a very large number of beggars. St. Chrysostom is also involved in establishing the amount of alms. Reflecting on the example of the Jews and trying to shame Christians for not being equal to the first, he wants alms to be at least a tithe of income. However, cash and in-kind giving is not the only way to give alms. It can also be fulfilled by providing services, patronage and advice. Between the particular forms of those services mentioned by St. Chrysostom, it should be noted the gratuitous care on the part of doctors. Another service that he recommends even more often is legal intervention between the creditor and his debtor. If you see a debtor in the square being pursued by a ruthless principal, offer yourself to him as surety, pay the debt if you can, or, if your means do not allow this, at least try to soften and persuade the principal with your admonitions and entreaties. Finally, a particularly great work of mercy is hospitality. Advice from St. Chrysostom, on this subject, as one can assume, were all the more frequent and insistent, the stronger the resistance he encountered against hospitality, although, generally speaking, this custom was less far from ancient customs than from the customs of our time. But it is almost certain, however, that he did not have time to make this custom common. Even if he constantly referred to the example of the patriarchs, at every opportunity he praised Lot or Abraham, pointed out in his Antioch sermons the amazing example of Bishop Flavian and invited to imitate the episcopal house open to all strangers - still the rude reason of the crowd raised many objections. It is true that these objections were based on hidden egoism, but they were not always foolish. They never stopped referring to the fact that a guest is always an unknown person, about whom you don’t know whether you can trust him. Then St. John described the travels of St. Apostle Paul and showed how he was received everywhere with an open heart. But, of course, they told him, we would be hospitable if we were talking about the Apostle Paul. Then St. John responded to this with his usual identification of the beggar and Christ. Here we are talking more than about Paul, here we are talking about Paul's Lord himself. “Whoever receives one of these little ones receives me.” But both in Constantinople and Antioch, this matter was usually entrusted to the Church, which had the correct organization of hospitality. “How few people enjoy the hospitality of their brothers! Everyone knows too well that there is a common church house called a hospital. But you need to act for yourself, sit at the city gates and voluntarily gather those passing by. You, on the contrary, entrust this whole matter to the funds of the church.” They forget that charity has a double purpose and a double effect: it must benefit the one who gives it as much as the one who receives it. If we reason as those who refuse hospitality in their own home reason, then we should also conclude that it is necessary to leave the priests alone to pray for the community, and to refuse prayer themselves. While the soldiers, at the request of the civil authorities, are given accommodation without any difficulty, they do not want to do the same for the poor, at the request of Christ. But the poor are our protectors from demons, like soldiers from barbarians.” Then comes the direct and precise advice of private discovery of hospitality. Let everyone show hospitality (xenodochia) in his home, according to his means. “Set aside a room in your house for a guest, that is, for Christ. Entrust one of your servants - and do not hesitate to choose the best of them for this ministry - to take care of the poor and weak. If not, if you refuse this sacrifice and do not want to bring Lazarus into your home, accept him at least in the stable. Are you trembling? But it is incomparably worse to refuse him at your door.” This amazing address is perfectly adapted to confuse hearts for a moment and fill the audience with those sobs that the eloquence of St. Chrysostom, so powerful thanks to such unforeseen effects and bold movements. But the emotional excitement of the listeners, even if it was deep and sincere, lasted only a moment, and in rich Constantinople these little hospitable women, to whose foundation the bishop invited, must not have been numerous. The rich resisted Chrysostom's sermon on alms with double stubbornness, and primarily due to simple coldness and indifference. This is indifference in the eyes of St. Chrysostom is the greatest crime, although very common. The rich are ready to give alms, in the sense of giving, but only because it does not cost any labor; if any obstacle should appear, if there is the slightest obstacle on the road, they no longer think about alms. “I would willingly give, but I have no money with me, I am far from my home, I do not have a slave at hand and I do not know the local money changer.” This inhuman carelessness and this coldness brought St. Chrysostom is indignant. But it was not only indifference that he had to fight. Many went so far as to attack charity in itself, in its principle and essence, recognizing its implementation as full of difficulties and infidelity; found that its consequences are not always equally happy. With more or less sincerity, they did not want to believe in honest poverty, in the existence of poor victims of misfortune. The poor deserve their fate, said the rich, proving this with sophisms and some facts of daily experience. First of all, due to the superstitious spirit of the times, people were inclined to see misfortune as a sign of guilt and proof of condemnation. It was constantly repeated that “God does not love beggars; if He loved them, He would heal their poverty.” However, they immediately added, look for yourself, what these beggars really are, whom you consider worthy of attention, and find out what kind of life they lead? These are slackers who do not want to work. “I can hardly restrain myself, seeing a young and strong man asking me to feed him. What do I know about him? only what I see, that is, that he is completely healthy and could work with his own hands; I don't know anything else; I don’t know, perhaps, that he is some kind of runaway slave.” Since they always considered it necessary to base their objections on the text of St. The Scriptures and the thoughts themselves were valued not so much by their inner dignity as by their correspondence with the words of the text cited; passages were usually cited either from the Gospel or from the Apostolic writings, and in them they found all the desired accuracy and clarity. Didn't St. say? ap. Paul to the Thessalonians: “He who labors not, let him not eat?” But the beggars not only do not work, but in addition they also pretend. We have seen what means they resort to to move us, how they pretend to be weak, how they maim, disfigure and blind their children. Yes, most of them are deceivers, combining fraud with barbarity. Look at this beggar, who has just been given alms, who looks hungry and is dressed in rags. Keep an eye on him - he will immediately sell the bread or clothes that I gave him. It can be even worse! We know perfect beggars who, by saving alms, little by little accumulated a glorious capital for themselves. Here is the one whom we have seen as a beggar for many years, secretly giving money at interest and making big profits. So alms, said the rich people of Antioch and Constantinople, borrowing from here the argument so often repeated later, becomes an encouragement for vice and a reward for laziness. These objections outraged St. Chrysostom and, denouncing them, he revealed all his boundless and immeasurable power; love. He wants that, when giving alms, they do not inquire about the beggar, do not go into reasoning and do not hesitate 10. You say that beggars do not work; do you work yourself? Are you not limiting yourself only to lazy enjoyment of the benefits that you have inherited? You say that beggars are pretending; if this is true, then it is only your hardness of heart that is to blame for it, which drives them to this extreme. Yes, however, are there really so many pretenders? You insist that they pretend to be more unhappy than they really are; you are embarrassed by the fact that you see them completely in rags, when they could at least be neatly dressed in the clothes that you sometimes agree to give them, but if they did so, then you would soon begin to assert that they do not need help at all, and that this is sufficiently proven by their decent clothing. You say that among them there are secret rich people; but these are children's fairy tales! This is impossible, since begging is too shameful, and no one would agree to this unless forced to do so by extreme need. If there are any exceptions here, they are extremely rare. And, finally, what is the point in these empty objections of greed? Here St. Chrysostom takes the point of view of his objectors directly: he agrees with them in the truth of their objections. Let there be idle people among the beggars, let there be deceivers and even criminals. Let us admit all this without objection, but what of it? By taking this bold step and siding with his opponents, the preacher thereby deals a powerful blow to them. And under this condition,” he says, “one must give equally to everyone; charity must have closed eyes and an open hand. She must preserve the sublime indifference of nature, equally kind to all beings; she must imitate the universal goodness of God, which has no partiality towards anyone. This is truly one of the most beautiful pages written by St. Chrysostom: “Does God ever tell us: “Because you do not work, I will not light the sun for you; since you do nothing useful, I extinguish the moon, close the bosom of the earth, dry up lakes, springs and rivers, and withhold the annual rains.” No, but He always supplies us with His gifts with equal generosity; He lavishes them not only on the idle, but even on the wicked.” This fiery and enthusiastic eloquence, although it appears when explaining the gospel instructions, is, however, not drawn solely from the sources of the gospel. It is engulfed in prophetic fire. Here one no longer hears the gentle and sweet voice of the Divine Teacher, but one feels the strong, commanding tone of Isaiah. Imitate the heavenly Father, who sends his sun on the just and the unjust! These are the divine words that constantly serve as a text for Chrysostom’s interpretations, but even more often he explains them with the energy and heartfelt severity of the ancient Jewish prophets than with the gracious tenderness of Christ the Savior. However, there still remained an argument that was strong in that era: these are the words of St. ap. Paul about those who do not work and should not eat. But St. Chrysostom did not find it difficult to repel the objection based on these words. “Don’t think,” he explained, “that I am ordering, or at least only allowing, you to remain idle; Of course, no, but on the contrary, I want everyone to work, for laziness is the advisor of every vice. I only command you not to be cruel and ruthless. The word is equally needed for the rich and the poor. Yes, St. ap. Paul said these words that are so often repeated, and he was right in saying them, for in the same letter to the Thessalonians he also wrote: “do not cease to do good.” So, is it clear to you that there is no contradiction here, but on the contrary, everything is in complete harmony? If you are ready to give, then the beggar will give up idleness, and you will give up inhumanity. In one case, St. Paul speaks to the rich, in another to the poor. He gives each his own instructions, different depending on the situation, but similar in purpose and result. Imagine that we are present at a quarrel, take part in each of the opponents and speak to them, different in their character, caring only about one thing - about their reconciliation. In the same way, the father, on the one hand, says to the teacher: “be a little more lenient, treat with more gentleness,” and on the other hand, to the son: “be more obedient: it is your duty to obey even when the order is unfair.” So excellent St. Chrysostom, in a sublime impulse of love, reconciles all contradictions. But were not all the objections of the Antioch and Constantinople people a secretive and shameful protest of selfishness? Of course, selfishness inspired the vast majority, but among the opponents of St. Chrysostom could also contain some straightforward and sincere people. When he responds to those who tirelessly pressed on the laziness and hypocrisy of deceiving beggars, there seems to be some difficulty in his speech. He would not have resorted so easily to the arguments just noted, that is, to the proofs of feeling and mystical instructions, if he had not felt some difficulty in staying on the basis of experience and exact facts. A man of a more balanced mind, a colder and self-dominant mind, St. Basil the Great, no matter how hostile he was to luxury and no matter how ardently he condemned the cruelty of the rich, did not neglect to remind that the duty of charity is to be clairvoyant and not to succumb to deception. “Whoever gives to the unfortunate and weak gives to God, but whoever gives to vagabonds and libertines throws alms to the dogs.” And at St. Chrysostom we find an admission that for the pagans it seemed tempting to have too many healthy beggars among Christians. Sometimes, in view of the objections raised, he spoke almost the same as St. Basil the Great. “The pagan beggars,” he said, “are lazy and parasites, since they live thanks to the remains of sacrifices. We encourage all those who are poor due to their own laziness to work, and we feed only the weak.” This remark is found in a book about St. Babylon, a work dating from an early period of his life. And he could be almost sure that there were no longer such parasites in the Christian church, since it is certain that from ancient times the church strictly monitored the poor, and the one who was recorded in the deacon's "books of help" could in some way consider this an honor. These weak beggars were a true adornment of the Roman Church, and it was to them, according to a wonderful legend, that St. Lawrence to the prefect, who demanded that he hand over those treasures that he kept by virtue of his rank. However, it cannot be unconditionally denied that in Antioch during the bishopric of Flavian there were not at all those pretend beggars whom the rich pointed out. St. Chrysostom often condemned those generous distributions that the heads of large families made to the people out of vanity, according to ancient Greek and Roman traditions. He was an enemy of ceremonies, games, holidays, distribution of provisions, the reason for which was the assumption of office by city officials. He said that the rich give solely in order to gain empty popularity, and that all this only serves to maintain the idleness of the people and to develop their bad instincts. Undoubtedly, Christian charity has always had this great superiority over the worldly distributions of pagan officials in that it never sought to give the poor anything beyond what was necessary, never flattered the passions, did not arouse gluttony, and did not satisfy voluptuousness. But, indeed, it could sometimes come to an indirect consequence, it could partly favor laziness and multiply to the extreme the class of beggars. As happens with the best human deeds, the enormous good brought by Christian charity was, as it were, redeemed by a certain amount of evil. But let's not count St. John is responsible for these regrettable consequences and we will not reproach him for the sublime deeds of his apostolic ministry. We will always remember that he performed his preaching work amazingly; everyone found a part in his word, and one could hope that someone would assimilate it completely. If the preacher himself had begun by sowing his teaching with all possible caution, out of condescension towards human weakness, then one might have feared that the people would retain only very meager particles. Therefore, it was necessary to sow with full hands, because the extreme of over-thinking egoism could not be overcome by anything other than the jealousy of boundless love. St. Chrysostom very well protected himself from reproach with the following words. “If you did some research before giving alms, how much time would be lost? And to what extent your intelligence would risk being incorrect and inaccurate! Is it possible to hope that any of those who seem so indifferent and outrage me with their coldness would turn out to be so virtuous that they would seriously carry out these searches? At the slightest suspicion, he will give up all inquiries, and, through the fault of some, all beggars will be suspected.” Let us also remember that if these truths are beautiful for any time, then they were especially wonderful for the 4th century. Charity was still a fairly new virtue back then. In families newly converted to the faith, it was still necessary to introduce a new, so tender feeling of respect and love for the beggar, who was so despised and so cruelly treated in ancient society, with the exception of a few venerable examples. In the bosom of Christian families, the tradition of hospitality and alms has already had time to establish itself since ancient generations, but enough time has passed for this wonderful custom to be shaken. And how was it possible to undertake St. John his great work of reform, if he had made an appeal only to cold reason, and would not have asked noble feelings for their almighty assistance? Finally, we must not forget one more very important consideration. The author of the famous work on the universal teacher, A. Thierry, regarding St. Chrysostom evokes memories of the Gracchi, and it seems to us that this rapprochement contains a complete historical error. It is certainly true to say that the task of Christianity in the 4th century, so important in the history of mankind, despite its weaknesses, was mainly to transform civil society itself after first transforming the world through moral ideas. Starting from St. Constantine the Great, we can already state the progressive influence of Christianity on legislation. But St. Chrysostom is almost alien to this movement; he is almost not involved in the reform of civil laws and despises the work of lawyers, in his eyes exclusively inspired by selfishness. It is not clear that he thought to renew it with the spirit of Christian love. The area of ​​the Church and the area of ​​the state always remained different for him, even at the moment when they sought to unite again. He almost does not deal with the consequences that the teaching of one can have on the conditions of existence of the other. Later we will have the opportunity to show that, although his thought regarding this point did not completely stop at any exact solution, however, he was usually inclined to believe in a fairly close end of the world. This state of mind was quite common for that time: then they did not think at all that the world should continue on an even longer journey. Although the majority of believers, and especially he, were alien to chiliastic views, they were naturally inclined to limit their hopes for the future. The history of the world, it seemed to them, had only one goal - the emergence of Christianity. Now the installation of the latter was an accomplished fact: its triumph was decisive and almost universal. Thus there seemed to be no basis left for the existence of a converted and transformed world. Barbarian attacks threatened the very existence of the empire, and many, although this was not a unanimous opinion, inextricably linked the existence of the empire with the existence of the universe. In our new societies, rightly or wrongly, imbued with faith in endless progress, every moral idea irresistibly strives to be embodied in law and become the rule of the state. We do not notice this in the 4th century. Then there were still Christians who had in mind only the reform of souls, fully aware that everything depended on this. Between them St. Chrysostom was the most wonderful. In this we see significant confirmation of the thought to which he often returns: the deeply Christian thought that alms are as good and effective for the one who does it as for the one who receives it. Such a thought rarely presents itself to the minds of a huge number of our contemporaries: love has been replaced by humanity. When they give alms, they first of all think about alleviating poverty and correcting natural evil. In the 4th century this was not the main concern of St. Chrysostom and the best Christians. Without a doubt, human suffering touched them, but seeing that it also has a divine origin, and repeating the words: “there will always be poor among us,” they did not have that ghostly desire that most of us, when giving alms, harbor in the depths of our hearts, that is, the desire to destroy, if possible, the last trace of poverty on this earth. At St. Chrysostom has developed a completely special theory regarding the needs and advantages of poverty, which, however, is more appropriate to present when we briefly outline his views on the government of Providence. Charity, as he understands it, is sharply different from the charity we perform. We want to improve wealth and distribute it more evenly; for St. It was enough for Chrysostom that the poor man have food, and it is no less important in his eyes that the rich man do good deeds, in view of his own salvation, for the edification of others and the sanctification of himself. This spirit of all-encompassing love, which animated St. Chrysostom, completely destroys the huge fifteen-century distance that lies between him and us, and makes him so close to our hearts. It is also clear from this how sharply he differed from those tribunes of the people with whom he was sometimes mistakenly compared. Thierry says that the same questions were asked in Rome under the Gracchi and in Constantinople under St. Chrysostom, but in fact these were completely different questions, or, if they certainly insist on this, they were the same, but they were posed so differently, they were so completely changed that no comparison between them is possible. In the works of St. Chrysostom cannot find a single word that would allow a poor man to think that he can make at least some demand on a rich man; he cannot even find a single place where material wealth is presented as an ideal. St. John did not preach universal prosperity, but, on the contrary, poverty for everyone: poverty was imposed on some by God, regardless of whether they received it from birth, as a natural condition, or whether it came from misfortunes, in which one must see the action of Divine Providence, and it should be endured and even loved as a blessing. As for others, being in the bosom of happiness, they must hide their poverty under the appearance of wealth, achieving this through complete renunciation of the goods of the world, through alms and hospitality, widely performed. Everything in this work constantly leads us to the conclusion that the result of the preaching of St. Chrysostom, with full adherence to his principles, would be nothing more than the implementation in the very cities of monastic life - not the purely ascetic and contemplative life of anchorites, but a community life subject to the law of labor, with the exception of only one requirement - celibacy. Let us imagine that this social ideal has come true. The rich would give up all spending on luxury, the poor would not strive to rise above their position. The arts and crafts would be limited exclusively to the production of the necessary and would never again serve excess and beauty. People would cultivate the land, make simple and rough clothing, weave baskets and make clay vessels, just as the monks do the same in their communities. Antioch and Constantinople would be no different from the Nitrian desert. Compare this society with the existing society - from a purely human point of view, there would be no beggars here. Progress would be entirely moral, solely and exclusively religious. It would not be a paradox to say, as Chrysostom told himself, that this would be of significant benefit to the rich, renewed by love. It was a saint's dream; for a people's tribune it would seem ridiculous. He talks about this specifically when he talks about slavery. Speaking about the organization of the church, we will still meet with these pious wills of property Answers from St. Chrysostom are found in the same texts that we have already cited, indicating the objections raised against him. We select only the most dramatic examples, although, speaking about charity, one could quote the entire Chrysostom